Twin wish

Ally and Luke don't look much alike, but they do often have oddly identical things happen to them.

For instance, when we went to Ally's parent-teacher conference last month, her teacher showed us her assessment.  It was all correct except she randomly had letters wrong.  We didn't know why she'd have missed those, but it wasn't a big deal.  After that we went to Luke's conference and his teacher showed us his assessment and he also had it nearly perfect except those same two random letters.

Earlier this week, I made a couple chickens (so we could eat roasted chicken one meal and make chicken and root vegetable soup for another meal and to freeze) and we had two wishbones drying out.  Kate and Anna broke one and Luke and Ally were going to do the other.  Anna said, "Knowing Luke and Ally, the thing will split right down the middle and they'll each have exactly half."  Dave told her, "That's impossible."

That is impossible, of course, but this happened:

Finding answers with Ally

Ally doesn't seem to have much faith in my knowledge.  

Yesterday Ally and Luke were going through my childhood coin collection.  They were asking what each coin was worth.  She handed me one and I told her, "This one is five shillings."  She asked, "How much is that?"  I said, "Hmmm, I'm not exactly sure."  She said, "I'll ask Daddy.  He's a doctor.  He's a good guy."

Then about an hour later we were making Kate's cake.  We were making large cupcakes and a cake to cut up to form into music notes.  I was trying to gauge how full to make the  cupcakes so they'd be a similar height to the cake.  I told her, "I'm not sure exactly how much to fill these up."  She suggested, "You could ask Siri.  She knows everything."

This really cracked me up.  I said, "How do you think Siri knows so much?"

Ally replied, "She checks her sources."*

I figured the height thing out even without Siri's help.

Ally getting her toenails done on our Mommy-Ally date.

*For those of you without an iPhone, if you ask Siri a questions, she'll often say, "Checking my sources," before giving you a list of links.

Feeling pretty good

Dave had to do an interview last night, and I was wiped out from helping a friend clear out her basement, so I told the kids we could watch part of a movie after all their homework was done.  If I'm honest, I was actually as emotionally wiped out as I was physically.  I'd kind of felt like I'd been fighting a lot of battles lately, and I had to wonder if they were all really worth it.

The kids chose to watch Sky High and we cuddled on the couch.  The world felt a little better.

In the movie there's a girl with long red hair who could have been assigned to be a "hero" but opts to be a "side kick" because she thinks it's wrong to label people.

Kate said, "She reminds me of you."

I wondered if she meant because of her hair, or if she meant because the girl was stubborn.  I asked her what she meant.

She replied, "She's like you, because, if you believe something is right, you'll stand up for it no matter what."

"Oh, my gosh," I replied.  "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me this month!"

Kate said, "Well, it's only the seventh."

I laughed with tears in my eyes.  And, suddenly, the world felt pretty darn good.


Tonight Anna asked Luke, Ally, and I to come look at the sunset.  Dave had Kate at piano.  Anna asked me to take a picture.  They posed themselves.  Adorable.

Pumpkin carving

My kids are getting so big!  Kate and Anna carved their own pumpkins this year!

Messy, beautiful love

Real love is messy.

It's not movie love, where both people in a couple are perfect for one another, their quirks and faults no longer noticeable as they fit together like puzzle pieces.

It's not love you see in commercials, where babies have the perfect baby smell and they irresistibly fall asleep on your shoulder.

Real love is messy.

The people of a couple are imperfect.  They make mistakes.  They disappoint each other.  At times the mere sound of the other person's chewing will make you want to grab the couch pillow and silent him forever.

And kids whine and cry.  They complain and are sometimes ungrateful.  And, sometimes they look as physically messy as they act.  You wonder how a child you know you are housing and feeding looks more feral than boy Tarzan.

Real love is messy.

But, that's real love.

Real love takes the good with the bad, the way he makes you laugh with the way he doesn't know where the pillowcases are stored (which have been in the same place for 8 years), the sweet smiles with the unwarranted temper tantrums and snot crusted noses.

Real love sees the whole person, and loves the whole person, and knows that it's the only love that really matters.

Oh, Anna...

Anna still has her "Oh, Anna" moments.  And my very favorite thing about Anna is that she (like her father) can laugh at herself.

The other day, Dave and Kate were discussing one of her tests.  Kate said that she didn't know if an answer would be all of the above, because she knew a and c were true, but she didn't know if b was also true.

Dave said, "That's something you can learn about taking multiple choice tests, in general.  If you know two of them are true, and you can only pick one answer,  it has to be 'all of the above.'"

Anna shook her head a little and said, "The first time I saw that answer on a test, I didn't know what in the world it meant!  'All of the above'?  Like, what?  The sky, the clouds, the stars?  How could that even be a choice!?"

Technically...

Ally was in one of her sweet moods (which are polar opposites to her other common moods).  She looked at me lovingly and said, "You're the best Mommy ever."

Luke piped up on a technicality, "Well, Ally, there are actually a lot of good mommies."

Modified expectations

Do you think the first line is modified expectations?

I'm the best mom *I* can be, but some other mom could sure do a lot better.

Real and not real

We'd gotten to the cottage late, and Anna was overtired and completely afraid to sleep in her own room without Kate.  At the cottage she shares with Ally, but apparently, she feels Kate is a better protector.

I lay down in her bed with her.  She explained she was a little afraid of ghosts and zombies. 

I  said, "Anna, I know it's sometimes fun to read books that have things like that in them, but you have to remember they're not real."

After a while, I told her we'd do a little check on what was real and what was not real.

"Ghosts," I said.

"Not real," she answered.

"Giraffes."

"Real."

"Zombies."

"Not real."  Then she got a glint in her eye and added, "But zombie giraffes are real," and began to giggle.

Rally Luke

Luke had been at a baseball game with Dave.  I was asleep when they got home.

When Luke went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he came in my room for a snuggle.

"Hey, Buddy," I said, snuggling him close, "How was the game?"

"Great."

"Did the Brewers win?"

"Yes!"

I began to doze a bit and he added, "And mom, we kinda made them win!"

Luke, apple picking with his "wasp protector glove"
 (He'd been stung reaching for a pear the weekend before.)

No, seriously...

While Kate and I were waiting for her carpool ride to school, I picked a snap dragon and was making it talk to her.  (It's so fun to annoy a ten year old.)

When I came in, I was having the snapdragon talk to the twins, and they were loving it.

Anna saw us and asked, "When did you guys make that?"

I answered, "We just picked it off the plant out front."

"Good one," she answered, not amused.

"No, honey," I insisted, "we really did.  It's a snapdragon.  Remember we planted them?"

"No, seriously," she implored.

"Honey," I said, "go look out front."

She stared at me, determined not to fall into a trap of us laughing as she went on a fruitless search.
I wondered if I might tease her too often.

I took her hand and led her outside to show her this time I wasn't teasing.

Anna with our new adopted pet, Violet.

Honey

Last week our neighbor boy accidentally disrupted a wasps' nest during recess while I was on duty.  He ran up to me with wasps clinging to his fleece and one sting already on his head.  I carefully helped him out of his fleece, trying not to anger the wasps, though he got another sting in the process and I also got stung myself.

This weekend, he brought me this adorable thank you gift.

This morning, Ally had some of the honey on her cheerios.  Usually when we get honey, we refill a squeezable honey bear which makes it easier to squeeze onto cereal, and Ally likes to add a little extra honey half way through the cheerios.  But the bear had accidentally gotten thrown away last week.

Today,  although I carefully drizzled honey out of the jar, I gave her more than I'd intended.  The jar got a little messy too, so I cleaned it up with my finger, commenting, "Yum!  That's some good honey."

Halfway through her cheerios Ally asked for more honey.  I said, "No, sweetie, you already had a lot."

She said, "I scraped the bottom, and there's no more honey in the bowl."

I said, "It's okay.  Just eat your cheerios."

After she finished, she commented, "It's okay.  I understand.  If I'd gotten some honey like that for a gift, I wouldn't want to share more either."

I looked at her, utterly surprised at her take on the situation.

She misunderstood the reason for my look and added, "If I was a grown up, I mean."

"Do you think I wouldn't give you more because I didn't want to share because I like the honey too much."

"Yeah," she answered, confused why I'd asked.

"No!  I'm happy to share.  You just had a lot of honey already."

"Oh," she replied, skeptical.

Anakin Skywalker

Sunday the kids were playing next to the old rock wall behind the house next to the cottage.  A rock fell from the wall and crushed Anna's finger.

It was pretty bad.  It's crushed it so badly that her finger split open in two places and her nail still turned blue.  I comforted Anna while Dave cleaned it up and bandaged it, but I was pretty woozy when I looked at it, so I couldn't even watch.

The next day, Dave changed the bandage.  I hadn't thought it was possible, but her finger looked even worse after the skin around the wound had turned white from being wrapped.  Afterwards, Anna commented, "My finger looks like Darth Vader."  I was confused.  The bandage Dave put on was white.  Darth Vader is black...  Then she clarified, "My finger looks Darth Vader without his armor."  Ewww.  But, yeah, I guess it was true.

Non-pesco vegetarians

After going through the animal barns at the Sheboygan County Fair last weekend, Kate declared herself a vegetarian.  As someone who ate a vegetarian diet for over a decade, I wasn't going to dispute her inclination, but I did find it somewhat ridiculous when she resisted certain food this week by saying, "Remember... I'm a vegetarian..." as if she herself has been a decade-long vegetarian.

Last night at dinner, I was preparing salmon.  Kate turned up her nose at it, but she wasn't sure if it was for gastronomic or moral reasons.

"Do vegetarians eat fish?" she asked.

I said, "Some vegetarians do eat fish, but many don't."

Anna jumped in and said, "Oh!  What a rad excuse! I'm not eating fish either."

I'm not sure where to start.... perhaps by wondering if "rad" is back in vogue.


Here's something the kids did at the fair that didn't lead to dietary changes.

Hearing vs. reading

Growing up, I didn't read nearly as much as Kate or Anna, but I there were still words I saw in writing that I hadn't heard out loud or words that I didn't realize when I read them were the same as words I'd heard.  Heck, I think I was in my 30's before I realized the word "indictment" I read in all the John Grissom novels was the same thing I heard on TV shows pronounced "in-dite-ment."

So, I totally understood where Anna was coming from the other day.  She was talking about how Dave's writing is even messier than hers and asked, "Want to see my handwriting 'v s' his?" and said the "v" and the "s" instead of the word "versus."

Brushing Finley

Anna asked if she could take Finley outside and brush her.  The kids have never done this without my supervision, so after a few minutes, I looked out the window to make sure everything was okay.

I can't be sure, but I think Finley might have been enjoying it.

Oh my goodness, these two are such a perfect match.

Watching the river flow

There's a restaurant in the town in which I grew up that has delicious gourmet burgers with fries for only $5 on Tuesdays.  The last time we ate there, I showed the kids a river nearby where I used to play (and fish for bullheads) when I was a kid.

The next time we ate there, the kids asked if they could go play in the river again.

When they went in the river, I went down into it, too, for a while.  I stepped out onto one rock with my right foot, and I knew just which rock I should step onto with my left foot.  It's the way I always made my way out into the river.

Very few things stay the same for 30 years.  So often in my life I'd felt thrown off because I'd expected something to be the way I remembered it, but it would be different, or I would be different.  It's happened so much in the last several years, that it was remarkable to step out on to the same rocks, in the same order, as I had many times as a kid.  

The kids made their way down river.  And, I was happy to see them enjoying it, just as I had.

But, when they got a little ways away, I climbed up onto the bank to follow them.  I was feeling like such a responsible mom, remembering how I always played without any supervision.

I overheard Luke say, "Mom's following us," and I thought how much comfort he must find in knowing his mom was nearby.  Then Anna followed Luke's gaze and commented, "Creeepy."

Talent show

Luke built a pillow house for his stuffed animals (babas, as the kids call them) using pillows, a homemade bow and pillow-arrows, and books.

He was ridiculously proud of it.  He commented, "If it were still the school year, I could show *this* for my talent!"

Then after a while he asked, "Did you out how to make these homemade bows and arrows online?"  I told him it was online already.  "Okay, good. Because, then you can put how to make this baba house online, too.  Anyone can make it!  They just need 7 pillows, 6 homemade arrows, a homemade arrow blaster, and books.  Or they could even use a magazines, if they'd like."

Just like Daddy

Dave doesn't like the air conditioning.  It's not the money it costs, or even just the feeling of being cooped up with the windows closed.  The guy actually likes the feeling of being a bit too warm, even sweaty.

This is exactly the opposite of me.  I hate being hot.

The kids seem to take after me in this aspect.  When we came back from the cottage to the house last week, and Dave had the air off and it was  85 degrees and humid in the house, they
(like I) began to complain.  Dave commented, "I'm perfectly comfortable."

Yesterday, we were running errands.  When Luke and Ally came back to the car from putting the library books in the depository, Luke commented, "Ahhhh, now that's air conditioning.  I was getting sweaty!"

I started thinking of how Dave likes to be sweaty and how Luke always wants to agree with Daddy on everything.  (If I ask Luke if he likes a song, he will, feigning a mere curiosity, ask, "Does Daddy like it?" before giving his answer.)

So, I asked, "Do you like to feel sweaty, Lukey?"

"No, not really," he answered.

I commented, "Yeah.  You know, Daddy likes being sweaty."

Luke commented, "Well, I sort of like it..."

The birds and the bess

I have, so many times, gotten strange looks from Dave when the kids would ask me a question about something related to birth, nursing, or conception and I would answer it with a matter-of-fact, detailed answer.

I, long ago, decided that this was the best way to teach "the birds and the bees," from the first question.  Because, I figure, if I started when they were little, they'd know everything before they found it embarrassing.  Some of my friends agree with this philosophy.  Some find it disturbing.

Well, it turns out even my kids are starting to question my "open conversation about all topics" policy.

I was using the bathroom when Ally came in.  She asked me, "Why do you get your period?"

I answered, "Because every month my body makes blood for a baby. And if I don't get pregnant with a baby, then I don't need the blood, and it comes out my vagina."

She asked, "Can you make a baby?"

I told her, "I could, but I don't need to make a baby, because I already have four wonderful babies, and that's enough for Daddy and me."

"We're not babies," she said grumpily.

"What I mean is, I had four babies, and now I have four wonderful children, and that's exactly what
Daddy and I want."

She switched tactics and said, "Please, make a baby?"

Wanting to get back to my bathroom business without an audience, I said, "Well, you have to talk to daddy, too, because he has the seeds that would make my egg grow."

"Where are the seeds?" Ally asked.

"They are in his penis, well in his testicles, but they comes out through his penis."

Disgusted by that answer, Ally said, "You're gwoss talking about this stuff."

Slightly amused, but also slightly defensive, I replied, "What!? Why am I gross? You asked me."

"Because you're talking about this stuff. And this stuff is gwoss!"

Best. Babysitter. Ever!!!

Dave and I have always known we'd found a pretty remarkable babysitter.  I mean, she handled our four kids when the were 5, 3, 1, and 1... long before either of the grandmas would take them.

But, a babysitter who invites the kids and their mom to her house for a visit and takes them on horseback rides for hours, lets the swim in her pond, play with her cat, and feeds them lunch.  There are no words.

The kids might have had the best day of their summer... and Kate might've had the best day of her life so far.  The kids described it as a dream come true.  I'd have to agree!

Our Bridget is such a remarkable person.  And her family is, too!

Ally and her dog

"Finley!  Go on your own bed.  Oh, fine.  You can have that half and I'll have this half."

Our feisty Ally doesn't have a lot of patience for most people, but she sure loves this dog.

I think the feeling is mutual.

8 1/2

This girl turned 8 1/2 today.